The present invention relates to an on-road facility fault information communication apparatus in an advanced-cruise-assist highway system (AHS) for delivering information for supporting safe and smooth traveling to each driver.
The conventional type of advanced-cruise-assist highway system (described as AHS hereinafter) generally comprises a road situation detection facility for detecting vehicles or obstacles on a road, a road situation detection facility for detecting surface situations of a road, a road situation detection facility, an on-road processing unit for preparing information for supporting safe travel of each car driver by using the information detected by the road surface situation detection facility, a road-to-vehicle communication facility for performing radio communication with vehicles each having a radio communication unit loaded therein (described as AHS vehicle hereinafter), and an information display facility for displaying information for supporting safe travel to each driver by using a display board provided on a road. The possibility of detecting, when a fault occurs in any of the facilities, the fault with a self-diagnosis function or a mutual diagnosis function and reporting information on the fault to an AHS center facility, which is an upper facility for the AHS vehicles or on-road facilities has been examined.
In the system as described above, however, when a fault occurs in the road-to-vehicle communication facility and a system fault can not be communicated to the AHS vehicles, or when a fault occurs in the information display facility and a system fault can not be displayed on the information drivers of vehicles running on the road.
In the present invention, the AHS center facility, which is an upper facility for on-road facilities, periodically obtains diagnostic information for the on-road facilities, and when a fault has occurred in any of the on-road facilities in the downstream therefrom, the AHS center facility communicates information that the on-road facility in the downstream is faulty to on-road facilities in the upstream direction from the faulty facility. The on-road facility having received information concerning a fault in the downstream on-road facility from the AHS center facility communicates information concerning the fault in the down-stream on-road facility to AHS vehicles which may enter a zone under control by the faulty on-road facility by using the road-to-vehicle communication facility. Further The AHS center facility is characterized in that a display indicating occurrence of the fault in the downstream on-road facility is provided on the information display board which can be recognized by the vehicles having the possibility of entering the zone under control by the faulty on-road facility.